For the 53rd time since Sept. 11, 2001, authorities this month thwarted a terror attack in the U.S. The attack was discovered and prevented through intelligence gathered by tricking the would-be terrorist into working with undercover agents.

These successes should be a cause for celebration, but instead there are calls to go back to the pre-9/11 era, when the role of law enforcement was only to investigate crimes after they occurred, not to prevent them.The accusation is that the FBI and local police are entrapping people who wouldnt be able to carry out terror attacks anyway. But informants and sting operations are crucial to stopping terror attacks. Its wrong to suggest that exposing would-be terrorists amounts to unlawful or unethical entrapment.